Sailing By Gemini's Star (The Constellation Trilogy Book 3) by Katie Crabb; Pirate Trilogy Docks With Thrilling and Particularly Emotional Finale

 

Sailing By Gemini's Star (The Constellation Trilogy Book 3) by Katie Crabb; Pirate Trilogy Docks With Thrilling and Particularly Emotional Finale

By Julie Sara Porter 

Bookworm Reviews 

Spoilers: Since this is the final book in the series, please read my previous reviews for Sailing By Orion’s Star and Sailing By Carina's Star. I must reiterate that this review contains MAJOR HEAVY DUTY SPOILERS!!!!!

The final volume in a series needs to end on a high note. This is the last time that we encounter these characters and we need to see them become better, stronger, more mature people who are changed by the various conflicts. The plots should move to a definite conclusion and all loose ends should be tied. We should close the book with a sign of relief and maybe a lump in our throat and a tear in our eye that the adventure is over. Katie Crabb’s final Constellation Trilogy Book, Sailing By Gemini's Star does all of that and more. It is a perfect ending for one of my favorite series that I read for this blog.

In the previous volume, Pirate Captain, Rene Delacroix, Sailing Master/Navigator Frantz Seymour, and Quartermaster, Auden Carlyle have been arrested for piracy. They are being taken to their former stomping grounds of Kingston, Jamaica to await trial. It also means that Rene has to reunite with his abusive grandfather Governor Sir Andrew Travers, his weak willed father Naval Admiral Michel Delacroix, his loving mother, Astra Travers Delacroix, and Michel’s first mate and surrogate son and Rene’s one time surrogate brother, Nicholas Jerome. Needless to say, it's a very uncomfortable family reunion.

Rene, Frantz, and Auden’s mentor, Captain Ajani Danso and his crew are planning for a rescue mission putting their own freedoms on the line. To free his son, Michel suggests that Rene plead insanity, that he followed Danso out of hysteria and an obsession with pirates, so he can be released and move to London to get away from it all. The Royal Navy can take care of Danso and his crew. As for Frantz and Auden, they will have to take their chances. Well, Michel asked the wrong guy because Rene says nothing doing. He would rather fight and die with the surrogate family that loves and accepts him than the blood family that he ran away from. Meanwhile, Michel, Astra, and Jerome have to make tough decisions that affect their own futures. 

Sailing By Gemini's Star develops the characters in ways that are very surprising and ultimately rewarding. It reminds us that for all of the elaborate sea battles, pillaging, sword fighting, and daring escapes, there are rich vibrant people that are involved in them. In fact Crabb makes most of her characters so relatable and identifiable that when they engage in one on one battles it's hard to know who to root for.

Even though he is in his twenties, Rene has matured from the naive kid that he was, to an adventurous adult with a strong moral compass, to a wily veteran sea dog who has left behind a legendary status as “Lucifer The Morning Star.” Even though he had previously sailed on Danso’s crew, he has retained a reputation in his own right. 

He found a surrogate family with Danso’s crew and won't abandon them. Danso mentored and encouraged him in a way that his father never did. He taught him but gave him enough room to create his own legacy. It's this devotion that motivates Rene to stand against his birth family and alongside his adopted one.

Returning to Kingston reconnects Rene to many of the issues that he left behind. To find comfort from the mother who supported him. To call his grandfather out for the abuse that he and Frantz were forced to endure. To find closure with his father. Also, to resolve his complicated relationship with Jerome, someone who he once admired, then grew to despise, and now feels empathy for. 

Danso is ready to move on to the next chapter in his life leaving a vacancy wide open for Rene to fill. Rene also wants to strengthen his relationship with his lover, Frantz but he can't move forward if he can't fully face his past.

Besides Rene, other characters go through wonderful meaningful changes. Astra finally asserts her independence away from her father and unhappy marriage and becomes part of Team Pirate. She reunites with a former lover and lives a life beyond her previous conventions. She becomes a better stronger character than the one who felt empathy for others but lacked the courage to openly help them.

Michel also develops as a character. He becomes a man who realizes almost too late that he lost everything and everyone that is important. It is only when he hits rock bottom and finds himself alone without his wife, son, or closest friends and truly sees the monster in Jerome that he helped create. Only then does he make some serious changes in his life and frees himself from his former identity as lackey of the Royal Navy.

By far the strongest development occurs in the most unlikeliest of characters: Nicholas Jerome. Just as I was prepared to write him off as a remorseless bigoted villain, Crabb pulled a switch on me. As I began this book and saw Jerome's vulnerabilities, I said, “No no don't do this to me, Crabb! Don't make me start caring about him when I disliked then hated him for two books!” But sure enough she did and I did.

 In a way, Jerome has become one of the most important characters of the whole series, if not the actual central character. He is the first character that we meet in Book 1 working as a cabin boy right before Danso and his future first mate, Abeni make their escape. We have seen him bond with Michel and Rene treating them like the family that he never had. We see him worry that his half-Romany heritage will turn him into a target and reject his estranged mother for not only her background but for abandoning him. We see the years of military regimentation transform him into a ruthless and efficient pirate hunter. We see him vow to hunt down Danso, who slipped past him, and Rene, sacrificing their previous friendship. 

In this volume, Jerome goes through intense emotional and mental turmoil as he is abandoned by those that he loves the most in the world, particularly Michel. Left on his own and then ultimately at the ironic mercy of the pirates, Jerome takes a long hard serious look at his life and the remorseless duty bound unfeeling monster that he has become. He is turned into someone whom Michel and Rene can't quite reject because of their familial bond but who also feels unworthy of their forgiveness, love, or understanding. 

Jerome's redemption is a slow moving process as one by one the kinks inside his armor are stripped away leaving him with no ship, no title, no crew, no friends, and no family. He is completely broken and devastated when faced with the reality of his previous actions. It is a truly well earned and rewarding moment when Jerome finally accepts the overtures of friendship in Danso's crew, particularly from Rene and fights on their side.

Sailing By Gemini's Star is a fine ending to a wonderful series where final battles are drawn, future plans are made, people move forward, and the crew disembarks at their final destination. However, there is a slight glimmer of hope beyond the horizon that suggests that the story is not quite over for Ajani Danso, Rene Delacroix, and Nicholas Jerome. That as long as there is an open sea and a ship to set sail, there will always be plenty of new adventures.

New Book Alert: Ginger Star: A Prequel (Stuck in the Onesies Series Book Three) by Diane McDonough; Gender and Racial Conflicts Surround 18th Jamaica Historical Fiction

 New Book Alert: Ginger Star: A Prequel (Stuck in the Onesies Series Book Three) by Diane McDonough; Gender and Racial Conflicts Surround 18th Jamaica Historical Fiction 

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: It's becoming common for me to review two or more books on the same subject. This year alone I have read books about ballet, books set in 2040 California, books in which characters have the ability of lucid dreaming, and fantasies involving magical creatures and beings from countries other than the United States and  those in Europe. It's still rare however when I read two or more historical fiction by different authors that are set at the exact same time frame and feature the exact same historical figures. In recent years, I remember Mistress Suffragette by Diana Forbes and Gilded Summer (Newport's Gilded Age Series Book One) by Donna Russo Morin being one set and Rhapsody by Mitchell James Kaplan and Lady Be Good: The Life and Times of Dorothy Hale by Pamela Hamilton being another. Well now I have another: the early years of the 18th century Caribbean seen through the words of Katie Crabb's Constellation Trilogy and Diane McDonough's Ginger Star: A Prequel Stuck in the Onesies Book Three.

 Both feature sailors, pirates, the slave trade, and both involve characters questioning and rebelling against the standards of the day. They are so similar, that it really isn't fair to compare them. I am not accusing anyone of plagiarizing, just sometimes ideas strike more than one person at a time. 

There are some interesting aspects that each author focuses on. Both focus on the dehumanization of slavery but they also take different approaches on how others are treated. Crabb also writes about the struggles affecting gay men and lesbians in the 18th century and how they often had to conform to societal standards, exile themselves (in this series' case to the seas), or face imprisonment or death.

She takes some looks at gender roles and the status of women in this time period but it definitely is sidelined for the LGBT perspective.

McDonough however puts her emphasis on race and gender roles. Many slaves and free blacks made communities of their own despite threats from the approaching white slavers and colonials. The book also looks at the roles of women in this Caribbean society and how they also fight for their rights and independence.

The book begins with Amari, a young Ghanaian man in a friendly hunting competition. Unfortunately, he and his friend, Kwasi are kidnapped, taken to a slave ship, and then separated. Amari  is injured and cared for by Ronnie Shepherd, the cabin boy and an indentured servant. The two become friends and Amari learns that Ronnie has been keeping a secret. Ronnie is actually a woman disguised as a boy to escape a troubled abusive home life. When the two reach Jamaican shores, Amari rescues Ronnie from being raped and the two make their escape. They reach an estate where a wealthy woman, Adria, helps them hide and covers for them. Adria invites them to stay on her family's estate, Ginger Star. Unfortunately, she has a secret of her own. She's unmarried and pregnant. 

Since The Constellation Trilogy spends a lot of time at sea, the Reader doesn't really get to explore the beauty of the Jamaican island. McDonough more than makes up for that. Adria’s first description of Jamaica is beyond lovely. McDonough wrote, “Small white caps broke over the reef that was outside the cove. The sea went from royal blue to crystal-clear aqua as it closed in on the shoreline. (Adria’s) gaze landed across the cove on a waterfall that spilled into the sea with fresh water from one of the eight rivers in and near Ocho Rios.” The book also explores the local flora and fauna and the local names for them such as ginger star for heliconia and doctor bird for hummingbird. 

McDounough captures the contradictions of an island of immense beauty and the ugly times which occur there: the buying and selling of human beings, the theft of land and resources by outsiders unwilling to share them with the people who were there first, and the fact that those in authority are so willfully corrupt and ignorant to what’s happening around them that the only way to uphold true justice and liberty is to break the law and become a pirate.

McDonough creates some memorable characters who live on the different sides of the socioeconomic and racial scale that inhabit her settings and makes them real. They are more than just microcosms of their society but individuals that live within it. 

The four strongest and best characters in this book are Amari, Ronnie, Adria, and another character whom I will mention later. After he escapes. Amari joins the Maroon community of escaped slaves and indigenous Tainos. They fight against colonists and rebel against the white government that had been forced upon the island. Amari later marries, adopts a son, and becomes a leader of his community. Because he befriended Ronnie and Adria, he is able to be a bridge between the white and indigenous and black communities of the island and to achieve diplomacy in the Maroons’ desire for recognition and independence. Amari still fights against the slavers and colonists when he has to, but he is also willing to work with and talk to his white friends to encourage cooperation. Also, during this time, the Maroon community grows with more slaves leaving plantations to live lives of freedom in which they can declare their own agencies. 

Adria is on the side of those white colonists and she shows kindness and charity towards those around her, white, black, and indigenous. She is mostly sheltered and kept in a very restricted upper class home where she is expected to marry, have children, and lead the servants and household. Adria  is in a more vulnerable position than Ronnie or Amari and is unable to physically fight, but her strength is in her gentleness and generous spirit. One of her greatest moments occurs long after she gives birth and she is separated from her child. When she learns the whereabouts of her child, the Reader expects her to strike out angrily and accuse those around her of kidnapping them, even kidnapping the child herself. Instead she sees the little one is happy and well cared for. Even though she admits that she gave birth, the little one’s real parents are the ones who raised them. 

Ronnie is another one in a peculiar position that puts her between worlds. Even though she is a woman, she spent time working on ships so can see the pirate’s perspective. She reverts back to her female identity, works in a store and sees other women taking charge of their own destiny. As a former indentured servant, she saw first hand the abhorrent treatment that black slaves suffered and speaks against it even after she enters a romance with a white plantation owner. She retains her friendship with Amari and Adria and helps stand against the institution of slavery. She has survived on her own for a long time, so is very strong willed and knows her own mind.

As I mentioned this book is set during almost the exact same time span as The Constellation Trilogy and many of the historical real life figures appear in both, one in particular. While she is glimpsed very briefly in Sailing by Carina’s Star, she is an important figure in Ginger Star and takes part in the plot in a huge way. She is Anne Bonney, one of the few female pirates during the Golden Age of Piracy. In Ginger Star, she is a former friend of Ronnie’s who  encouraged the younger woman to follow her own path of donning men’s clothing and taking to the seas. 

One of the most interesting things about Bonney’s appearance in Ginger Star is that this book offers a few theories as to why she disappeared from history. In reality, her husband Calico Jack Rackham was executed and she was scheduled to be executed as well, but she claimed pregnancy so she was released. That was the last known record of her, no one knows where she went upon her escape, if she escaped, or when and where she died. Ginger Star cleverly fills those gaps by giving Bonney a more decisive end to her story while still being true to her crafty, adventurous, fighting spirit.

Ginger Star is a very different book from The Constellation Trilogy even though it covers the same time period. It captures great beauty in setting, ugliness in inhumanity, and courage and spirit in the various individuals that dwelled in that time and place. 

New Book Alert: Sailing by Carina's Star (The Constellation Trilogy Book 2) by Katie Crabb; Dramatic Confrontations Abound as Family and Loyalty Lines Are Redrawn

 

New Book Alert: Sailing by Carina's Star (The Constellation Trilogy Book 2) by Katie Crabb; Dramatic Confrontations Abound as Family and Loyalty Lines Are Redrawn

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: The previous volume of Katie Crabb's Constellation Trilogy, Sailing by Orion's Star, ended with Rene Delacroix, a wealthy Captain's white son, Frantz Seymour, the biracial son of Captain Delacroix's deceased first mate, and Auden Carlyle, Rene and Frantz's gambler friend ran away from their Jamaican homes of abuse and slavery and joined the pirate crew of Ajani Danso, AKA, Robin Hood The Merciful. Nicholas Jerome, Captain Delacroix's current first mate and surrogate son, angrily vowed that he would find them no matter how long it took.

The second volume, Sailing by Carina's Star, continues to redefine the terms of family and friends and puts the characters in situations that change and mature them.

In this volume,Jerome, now a Lieutenant in the English Royal Navy, is making a name for himself as a pirate catcher. However, one crew seems to slip from his grasp. A reunion with his long estranged Romany mother, Tiena, does not soften Jerome. In fact, it only makes him more determined to find Rene and the others. He owes it to Michel Delacroix, now Commodore of the East India Company, a man that Jerome considers his father.

Meanwhile, Danso's crew has grown. Besides Abeni, his female quartermaster and best friend, Rene, Frantz, and Auden, he also has Abeni's daughter Flora, Danso's nephew Jahni, and new crew members, Chema Guerra, Elliot Roux, Benoit Martel, Marc Favreau, and Eli Matos. Rene, Frantz, and Auden have become experienced sailors, so much so that rumors spread about the three young pirates, particularly a fair haired one on Robin Hood's crew. Danso's crew and legend grows so much that when he gets a new ship, the Saiph to accompany his Misericorde, the vote is unanimous to make Rene the consort captain, Frantz the sailing master, and Auden as quartermaster. In fact, Rene gains quite a reputation of his own and names such as Robin Hood's Devil, The Red Devil, Lucifer, and (his favorite) The Morning Star.

This book sees a huge age lift for many of the young characters. Jerome and the boys ended the previous book in their late twenties and mid teens respectively. In this volume Jerome is approaching forty and the young men are now in their twenties. With that aging comes great change and maturity and the desire to cling to old values or completely break away from them. 

After Delacroix and Jerome have been promoted, they have moved away from personally involving themselves in the slave trade, though still condoning it. One hopes that their final encounter with Danso, Abeni, and particularly Rene and Frantz shook them up enough to open up some humanity in them, but realistically they are more concerned with catching pirates and have one major project at a time to work on. 

In fact, Jerome has regressed considerably in character. In the previous book, he was determined to follow Delacroix’s orders and maintain what he considered law and order on the high seas; however he still showed glimpses of being a good person at heart. He spent time teaching Rene about sword fighting and telling sea stories to him and Frantz. He treated Delacroix like the father that he desperately needed. He sometimes fought inward battles between what he personally believed and what his orders were, with orders always coming first.  Now those flashes of humanity are gone.

Instead the years of regimentation, rules, and regulations have taken their toll turning Jerome into an unremorseful, bigoted, hateful, tool of the British Navy. When he reunites with his mother, instead of having a tearful embrace (like Frantz does when he reunites with his missing mother, Chantal), he yells at her and turns her away. He thinks of her as a stain on his reputation (because he believes that if word gets out that he’s half-Romany, he would be removed from his position at the very least and imprisoned at the very worst). Even though there is brief talk of him getting married, Jerome is a Navy man through and through. While he is still a loyal surrogate son to Delacroix, his ambitions and his remorseless behavior have made him completely monstrous and no longer identifiable.

Rene, Danso, and the other pirates on the other hand have become stronger in terms of character and their relationships with each other. Besides being a brave and effective leader who has earned the respect of his crew, Danso has become a father figure to his men and women. He worries when the younger members are on their own missions and is protective of them. He doesn’t have children of his own, but he treats Rene, Frantz, Auden. Jahni, and Flora like his own. 

He also encourages them and knows that he can’t keep them sheltered forever which is why he lets them crew the Saiph because he trusts them. Unlike Delacroix who was well meaning but wanted to keep Rene sheltered, Danso knows that the young people in his care will face the world on their own and he might as well prepare them for it. 

Abeni also comes into her own, becoming a fierce and loyal first mate. In a couple of chapters, Danso becomes incapacitated and unable to captain. Abeni has to fill in and does so becoming proactive and assertive instead of the more diplomatic Danso. She also obtains a love interest in the patient and kind, Eli. 

The other pirates also become stronger in various pages as a family, crew, and individual characters. Their circle expands to include many other pirates and civilians who are on their side. Real life characters like Edward “Blackbeard” Teach, Sam Bellamy, Anne Bonney, Mary Read, and “Calico '' Jack Rackham encounter the Misericorde crew giving their “arrs” of approval. Danso and Abeni’s former crewmates, lovers Collins and Robins, help them and later they return the favor. After Jerome rejects his mother, Tiena, the Misericorde gang not only accept her but introduce her to Frantz’s mother, Chantal, who hires her to work with her. Even Rene’s mother, Astra Delacroix remains where she is in her stately home in Kingston but remembers how she helped the boys escape to the Misericorde. She states to her husband and her father that she would rather the boys remain pirates than return to a life of imprisonment for Frantz and misery for Rene.

Similar to Fearghus Academy: Precarious Gems, one of the ways to show the characters’ developing maturity is to explore their romantic interests and pair them up. Besides Abeni and Eli, new pirates  Eliot and Benoit become a couple, as do Flora and Auden. While Rene and Frantz are best friends, their previous relationship was clearly one of deep emotion and platonic pairing. This is finally the volume where they confess their love for each other and become an out and proud couple that men like their fathers were afraid to become. The feeling from the Reader is less “I knew it” than a relieved “Finally!” when the duo confess their love. 

Of the characters, Rene is the most developed. In the first volume, he was a wide eyed kid drawn by the adventure of the high seas and piracy. He left Jamaica as a stand against the slavery institution that his grandfather, father, and Jerome represent. His humanity and his love for Frantz were more important than that. 

In the second volume, he is less wide eyed and innocent. He is someone who has killed to defend his crew and is unafraid to do so again. Thanks to Jerome’s teaching, he is quite the swordsman (as Frantz is aces with firing guns), and will fight with a vengeful fury. In fact his fair hair, red coat, and angry fighting style are what earned him the nicknames of the “Red Devil” and “Lucifer the Morning Star.” (Because he “looks like Satan before the Fall and fights like him after” legends say). He takes the insults that his grandfather gave him like “monster” and “devil” and turns them around to take pride in them as someone who will fight like a demon for those he cares about.

 One mark of Rene's maturity is his ambivalence about accepting the captaincy. Ever since he was a boy he and Frantz shared the dream of Rene becoming captain of a ship and Frantz being his navigator. While he proves himself as a great sailor and teammate to Danso and the rest of the crew, he is at first reluctant to take the consort captaincy. He doesn’t dodge the possibility of leadership, in fact takes the lead in small groups. But the offer of becoming a captain awakens not only his old ambitions but memories of the abuse inflicted from his grandfather and the indifference from his father. He is afraid of becoming like them. It takes Frantz’s declaration of love and unshakable faith for him to accept the captaincy and the reputation that comes afterwards of becoming the “Red Devil.”

Sailing by Orion’s Star had plenty of suspenseful chapters of the crew nearly getting caught but escaping. Since Sailing by Carina’s Star is darker, they aren’t always so lucky. Some get caught and their rescue takes a tremendous toll on their numbers. It also ends with a cliffhanger in which some are put in the worst position possible and face imprisonment, exile, or the gallows. 

With the characters maturing and the situation becoming darker for the characters, the third part of the Constellation Trilogy should be a final decisive climactic ending for the characters and the new families that they have formed in the ashes of the old ones.

Weekly Reader: Sailing by Orion's Star (The Constellation Trilogy Book 1) by Katie Crabb; Engaging Seagoing Adventure About Piracy and Slavery

 

Weekly Reader: Sailing by Orion's Star (The Constellation Trilogy Book 1) by Katie Crabb; Engaging Seagoing Adventure About Piracy and Slavery

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: What's better than reading the next volume of a great series? Reading the first volume of a new great series. Here we have one.

Sailing by Orion's Star is the first volume of Katie Crabb's Constellation Trilogy. It is a high seas adventure involving pirates, slavery, and makes some great commentary about racism, sexuality, and what it really means to stand against deplorable institutions and become a hero.

In 17th century Jamaica, Ajani Danso and Abeni escape from a slave and prison ship getting past a young seaman, Nicholas Jerome. They end up on a pirate ship, eventually becoming Captain and Quartermaster of their own ship. Meanwhile, Jerome was removed from his old position and has been hired by Captain Michel Delacroix, a kind captain who treats Jerome like a younger brother. Jerome bonds not only with Delacroix but also the Captain's son, Rene and Frantz, Rene's best friend. 

As Rene and Frantz mature, their friendship intensifies and they become at odds with Jerome's and Delacroix's inaction with and involvement in the slave trade. 

There are so many great things about this book. In the first outing, Crabb hits it out of the park. There are plenty of moments of great sword fighting and narrow escapes that would be at home in a Pirates of the Caribbean film. There's a great moment when Danso and Abeni, fresh in their pirate careers, help slaves escape from a ship and give the escaped slaves the option of returning to their countries of origin or becoming part of their crew. This adventure helps cement their reputations as the Robin Hood and Maid Marian of the High Seas. 

Danso and Abeni's story is fascinating especially in the heart wrenching chapters when they reunite with family members lost in the slave trade. There is no doubt that despite being pirates, they are the good guys. They are fighting against a horrible dehumanizing institution that though legal was far from moral or ethical. 

The other interesting aspect to this story is the relationship between Rene and Frantz. It's fascinating watching them grow as innocent children to teens questioning and outright rebelling against something that they know is not right.

Rene starts as a naive kid who admires his father and thinks that he could do no wrong. He loves traveling with him and learning sword fighting from Jerome. He loves to hear about sea stories, tales of monsters, sirens, and of course pirates. He collects the stories in a book, including those of Danso and Abeni, Robin Hood and Maid Marian, unaware that they are closer to his father and his crew than he thought.

Rene also hates his abusive maternal grandfather who is the Governor of Kingston. He thinks he owns everything and everybody and isn't above striking and beating his own grandson into submission. No wonder Rene prefers the seas to land. 

There is another reason that Rene prefers his life on the seas: so he can be with Frantz. Compared to Rene's wealthy family with a French naval captain and his English wealthy wife, proper by 17th century standards, Frantz's family is very unconventional. He is the biracial son of Delacroix's first mate and best friend, Lt. Seymour and Chantal Mensah, a black woman from the Gold Coast. 

Unlike the Delacroixs who have to act like the correct couple even when they are at odds, Seymour and Chantal are really loyal and in love with each other but laws prevent them from being together. It's a truly heartbreaking cruel moment when Seymour and Chantal are separated forever but it intensifies Frantz and Rene's friendship as Rene tries to be the substitute family that Frantz needs. 

 The governor seeks a few times to personally attack or sell Frantz because of who he is. Delacroix turns a blind eye and Astra, his wife, only lets her real thoughts known in secret. Rene and Frantz are more upfront and are argumentative against Frantz's and the other slave's mistreatment. If the old song is right that children must be taught carefully to hate, Rene and Frantz are taught carefully to love. And love they do.

In fact, as the two boys become teenagers, their friendship evolves into romance. They become a duo who would do anything to stay together. Their convictions against slavery cause them to see the people around them, especially Delacroix and Jerome, as participants in dehumanizing people around them. They want to escape and fight against slavery even if it means leaving everyone that they know behind and facing the unknown of the seas, perhaps towards a very famous crew of pirates.

The other interesting thing that Crabb does is shows how slavery dehumanizes everyone, those that are captive and those that are doing the catching and transporting. If the pirates are the good guys, then the navy and officials are the bad.

This is embodied in Delacroix and Jerome. Delacroix is at first portrayed as a loving father to his crew and to his son. He never exhibits corporal punishment towards anybody and while nonchalant about the slave trade absolutely will not transport them. His friendship, and at one time more, with Seymour keeps him grounded and steady, giving him something of a backbone. Astra also has a higher moral compass than her husband's. Even though she can't say what she feels aloud, she is able to help escaped slaves covertly. They and Rene's admiration keep Delacroix's darker feelings in check for a while.

Unfortunately, Delacroix loses those good influences one by one either by other's actions or his own. At first he is inattentive and ambivalent to slavery, not personally liking it but accepting it in the background. Then he compromises his morals under duress and threats of removal of power. He kowtows to the institution and participates in transporting slaves. This is an anguished moment when Rene no longer sees the hero that he once idolized but a weakling who would rather capitulate than fight against something that he knows is wrong.

Jerome is another character who changes for the worse. He is the first pov character in the book and is portrayed sympathetically during Danso and Abeni's escape. He is a minor sailor in over his head and has a family history of his own that he doesn't want to admit. He is half-Romany on his mother's side. That lineage could enslave or imprison him so he keeps it a secret. (One of the few redeeming moments that Delacroix has later in the book involves Jerome letting his guard down enough to tell the captain about his family and Delacroix still understands and accepts him). 

Jerome starts creating a surrogate family with Delacroix as his father and Rene as his brother. He enjoys the sword fighting lessons as much as Rene does and clearly sees Delacroix as the standard of someone he wants to be like. However, he too is caught between the standards of the day and his own morals. His reactions towards the slaves' mistreatment amounts to being glad that he doesn't have to go through it so he maintains silence.

Jerome also hates pirates because he sees them as irredeemable criminals regardless of their motives and also because he knows that he helped create Danso and Abeni's legend. His black and white views of piracy and slavery and adoration of the captain motivate him to turn his conscience off. He goes from being naive to a cold navy man who accepts commands no matter how harsh and violent they are. He becomes someone who left his conscience at the door and is the archetypal soldier, or sailor in this case, who is "just following orders." His descent into villainy is felt in the final pages as he actively rejects the good man he once was to become the hateful villain that he is becoming.

Sailing by Orion's Star is a great start to a tremendous series. If the second volume is like the first, there is some rough waters ahead for the characters, but the Reader will find some smooth sailing.

 

New Book Alert: The Secret Life of Sofonisba Anguissola by Melissa Muldoon; Wonderful Romantic Historical Fiction About A Brilliant Artist and Woman

 

New Book Alert: The Secret Life of Sofonisba Anguissola by Melissa Muldoon; Wonderful Romantic Historical Fiction About A Brilliant Artist and Woman

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: The more I work on this blog, the more I begin to agree with Virginia Woolf "I would venture to guess that Anon...was often a woman" not to mention Laurel Thatcher Ulrich that "well-behaved women seldom make history." 

Both of these legendary quotes about the absence of women in conventional historical, literary, and artistic accounts reveal why it was so difficult for women to be spoken of in the same breath as their male peers. Even now it is a wonderful experience to learn about and meet many of these women for the first time like the Yekineyen Parastina Jin, Elizabeth Craven, Sophie de Tott, Elizabeth Graeme Fergusson, Caroline Ferriday and the Ravensbruck Rabbits, Alouette Richard and Marthe Cnockeart, Elsa Schiaparelli , Danielle Casanova, Mai Politzer, and the other women of the French Resistance, Harriet Jacobs, Victoria Woodhull and Tennessee Claflin, Dorothy Vaughn. Mary Jackson, and Katherine Johnson, Ruth Handler, and Henry VIII's so-called lesser known wives, Anne of Cleves, Katherine Howard, and Kateryn Parr

 That's one of the things that I love about this job: reading historical fiction and nonfiction and discovering a new and zoutstanding name to be added to others. But sometimes, it's sad that many of these names are being read for the first time. I sometimes wonder how it is that many people don't already know of these courageous talented women? Why are they not automatically mentioned in the same breath as their male counterparts? Why did it take me 40+ years to learn Elizabeth Graeme Fergusson's name when I already knew Paul Revere's since I was 7?  In the decades since gender studies have been brought to light in academia, are women still lagging behind or are we finally catching up? Or to rephrase a meme, why is traditional white men's history and literature still a requirement and women's (and for that matter Black and Indigenous and Asian etc.) history and literature still an elective?

Modern publishing is taking great strides to correct that. Best Seller lists, libraries, and bookstores are flooded with titles of both fiction and nonfiction books about real life women from different time periods that are finally getting their stories told. We can't change that we haven't heard about them before, but we can change hearing about them from now on. Authors and historians will do their best to tell their story, while reviewers like me will do our best to share those stories even further.

Melissa Muldoon is one of those authors who is doing her bit to promote historic women in the arts. She has written a four part series about Italian Renaissance artists, patrons, and promoters, all of them female. These books are a memorable legacy about how art is seen and shared. Also that sometimes the female artist's soul can be revealed more in her work than in her personal life, when societal constraints sometimes forbade her from being open about her private life.

One of Muldoon's books is The Secret Life of Sofonisba Anguissola, a conventional historical fiction novel which tells about portrait painter Sofonisba Anguissola. In this brilliant detailed novel, an elderly Anguissola tells fellow artist, Anthony Van Dyck, the story of her life with one challenge: one of the details in her story is a lie. She dares Van Dyck (and the Reader) to guess which one. With this introduction, Muldoon weaves fact and fiction to tell a wonderful story about a spirited independent woman who embraced her talent before love and ended up getting both.

Anguissola begins by telling the origin of her name and proud family history. Her surname Anguissola came from an ancestor who was a soldier and warrior nicknamed Anguissola (the serpent) for his cunning nature. Her first name, Sofonisba came from a Carthaginian princess who was caught in a deadly love triangle. She also reveals her nickname, Sorella Leone (Sister Lion) as the oldest and most fiery of her and her four siblings. The name origins foreshadow Anguissola's future as an intelligent spirited woman caught up in the passions and combats of the day.

We also see how Anguissola's family influenced her path. Her parents were unconventional, believing that their daughters should be educated along with their son.

Not only does Sofonisba show a talent in art but her other sisters are adept in other fields: Minerva is a talented poet and writer, Elena is a gifted musician and composer, and Europa has a more mathematical mind. The passages where the sisters play act stories from history and mythology as well as their diverse skills are similar to the March Sisters in Little Women who use their talents for entertainment and future prospects (and coming from a similarly talented family who show our diverse skills in music, art, computer science, writing, veterinary medicine, drama, education, and finance, I find these chapters completely relatable).

Because of this upbringing, the Anguissola Sisters are more real and more defined than their younger brother, Asdrubale. He grows  into a spoiled brat who contributes nothing, except withholding funds and permission to wed, all with the lame declaration that he is the head of the family, though does nothing to earn that title.

Anguissola's education is dwelt upon as she studies under great artists like Bernardino Campi and Michelangelo Buonarroti learning how to perfect her portraits of the human body and add form, shadow, and texture to her work. One of the key moments that foreshadows Anguissola's genius is a painting that she makes as a gift for Campi. It is a pentimento, in which an artist's original underdrawing bleeds into the finished project in essence, a hidden message or detail within the original painting.  The portrait is a self portrait with an image of Campi painting her. Even more impressive is the detail in which Anguissola's hand is on top of Campi's so it is uncertain who is painting whom.

Anguissola also reveals a strong independent character when she resolves that she will devote herself to her art. Many women chose to marry, but her first love is her art and she has no intention of marrying until she is good and ready. In fact true to her resolve, she doesn't marry for the first time until she is in her mid-30's and in a situation where marriage is her only option.

By far the most intriguing chapters are the ones set in Spain where Anguissola is hired as a portrait painter/art teacher/spy for Elizabeth of Valois, wife of King Phillip of Spain and the eldest daughter of Henry II and Catherine de' Medici. As I mentioned before, I love how historical fiction (and nonfiction for that matter) authors will take a historic character and give them a different outlook, so you are experiencing different aspects of the same figure. 

I recently was acquainted with King Phillip through Philippa Gregory's The Queen's Fool and The Virgin's Lover, both of which focus on Phillip's unhappy marriage to Queen Mary Tudor and failed courtship and rivalry with Queen Elizabeth. In both books, he is seen as a feckless callous self-centered oaf who openly flirts with pretty younger women while married to Mary and verbally abuses her when she is unable to bear children. He proves to be no match for Elizabeth's cunning and sly nature. 

However, Muldoon's version of Phillip is an older and wiser man, happily married to Elizabeth and in mourning for his former wife, the Infanta Maria Manuela who died giving birth to his son, Don Carlos. He is older and sees the ramifications of his past, becoming a more mature thoughtful man. He is also constantly exasperated and frustrated by the behaviors of his son, Don Carlos, relying more on his associate Fernando Álvarez de Toledo, the Duke of Alba. Phillip considers Alba a better person to become his heir rather than the ruthless sadistic Don Carlos.

Elizabeth of Valois is seen as a sweet loving person who is so concerned for Anguissola's welfare when she recruits her as a spy that she tells her that all she has to do is listen as she paints and reports gossip. She is not to concern herself with notes, codes, or anything dangerous. Anguissola is just supposed to share any gossip or rumors that she hears. 

Also, as a Medici descendant, Elizabeth has a keen eye and appreciation for the arts which she reveals in her sisterly bond with the portrait painter. She is the type of sweet fragile good character that, even without the benefit of studying history, you just know something bad will happen to them even when you hope it doesn't.

While Phillip and Elizabeth and her family are diverse in their frequent portrayals in various media, I have yet to hear of an account of Don Carlos in which he is not written as a complete psychopath. While he may garner some sympathies because of his physical abnormalities such as scoliosis, it is his cruel and despotic nature that is often at play. In this Novel, he tortures young women whom he takes to bed for fun, openly lusts after his young stepmother, and violently attacks anyone who dares to disagree with him. Don Carlos is so sadistic and deplorable that many hope for his comeuppance before he finally receives it.

This is a tempestuous household that Anguissola finds herself in and finds protection not only from Elizabeth but from Alba. Unfortunately, Alba has a less altruistic side. He lusts after Anguissola and doesn't buy her devotion to art. His behavior becomes unstable and even borderline stalkerish when she becomes romantically involved with sea captain, Orazio Lemollino arranging his dismissal and fumes with obsessive jealousy when she finds herself pregnant and is forced to marry Fabrizio Pignatelli to save face.

Far from being a dry account of chronological events of Anguissola's life, Anguissola (and Muldoon of course) sprinkle the narrative with literary touches that make one doubt the veracity of her tale but enjoy it all the same. Remember the whole theme is finding the lie in Anguissola's story so of course she is going to embellish, fabricate, and play with her narrative. Of course with Anguissola as a narrator, she is going to give Muldoon permission to take liberties with her history.

Some of the events play into various genres. Anguissola's first meeting with Orazio is pure romance as they meet for the first time when they are young. They have a splendid time for one night walking the streets of Etruria and encouraging one another in their pursuits of art and seamanship. They don't get each other's names at first but Sofonisba can't get him out of her mind. Lo and behold, they reunite years later in Spain and begin a very passionate affair as two people that are similar in intelligence, drive, and passion. (Because of course, people always reunite in one country after encountering each other for one night, years ago in a completely different country.)

There is a whiff of murder mystery as a few months after Anguissola's marriage to the much older Pignatelli, he dies under mysterious circumstances. Pignatelli's spoiled temperamental daughter, Cinzia, suspects Anguissola while Anguissola herself is surrounded by sinister characters including Cinzia and both of her former paramours, Alba and Orazio, who arrive just in time for Pignatelli to conveniently be murdered.

Anguissola knows how to play her audience. She tells her story so well that Van Dyck (and the Reader) don't care about finding the lie. We just enjoy the fascinating time spent with this brilliant, vibrant, and talented woman that Muldoon captured through her excellent writing.